Thursday, February 20, 2014

Finally! We get to let you in on a little "secret" we've been hiding for awhile ("secret" is in quotes because it's not common knowledge but it's not really been a secret either!) A new little person will soon be joining our family! Since most of you know that pregnancy and newborn babies do not appear to be in the plan for us anymore, this little one will be joining us by way of adoption from Ethiopia, and we could not be more thrilled!

This all feels like the culmination of years of thinking, praying, wishing, and learning, so while some of you may know adoption has always been on our radar, for others of you this might come as a surprise. Thankfully God loves surprises and has been preparing us for this one for quite awhile. When Andy and I first got married the question of adoption came up- I think we arbitrarily had a conversation about it one day. I'm pretty sure I (Krista) asked Andy if he'd ever consider it, he said yes, I was faintly surprised, and we moved on.

Then, when we tried to start a family, the question came up again as we considered our options for handling our troubles having biological children. We visited Adoption Associates, we visited The Fertility Center, and at that point in our lives adoption got put on the back burner as we decided for many reasons that trying to have bio children first was the best way for us to get started. Fast forward 4 years and here with are, with 2 children, no desire to proceed with more fertility treatments (after several failed attempts), and still wanting to add to our family. Back to Adoption Associates we went and from there to the Ethiopia Special Needs program.

We don't know a lot right now; we haven't specified a gender since we don't really care either way (though we've heard a boy is most likely), and we agree with AAI that an adopted child should be younger than the twins, preferably by at least 9 months. We also know that for us, the term Special Needs will be defined as a physical problem ranging from a minor deformity, to vision or hearing difficulties, to HIV. There are a lot of unknowns right now, but we DO know that God has a little one already planned for us and we cannot wait to find out more about him/her and for more and more light to be shed, revealing His plan.

If you know much about adoption you know that nothing is certain (not an easy thing for this planner, semi-type-A personality to accept!) and things, more likely than not, will move slowly the majority of the time. We are doing our best to prepare ourselves and our family for just about anything, but would covet your prayers of support throughout this process. Pray specifically for Eli and Evie, that they would be able to approach this new sibling with love and excitement. Pray for our adopted little one that he/she will stay healthy while waiting and will transition to our family life smoothly. Please also pray for his/her biological family- we cannot know all the details of how or why our child has become orphaned but we are very aware that our joy in adding another family member comes to us because of other's loss(es). My heart breaks to think of the loss our child will already have experienced in his/her short life by the time we are able to bring him/her home as well as the loss his/her family is experiencing in not being able to raise this little one.

Something you may not know, is that adoption, whether international or domestic is not an inexpensive undertaking. Currently we are expecting our adoption to cost between $30,000 and $40,000. While we anticipate being able to cover about half of the funds ourselves, we will still need to do significant fundraising along the lines of $10,000-$20,000, to allow us to bring our little one home. We are also planning to apply for some of the wonderful grants we have been told about and would appreciate prayers on our behalf for those. If you would like to be a part of our adoption story and support us financially we would of course, be very, very thankful.
We have been so blessed by the love and support we have already been shown from friends and family as we've gotten started in this time of expectation. While the wait may be longer or shorter than the typical pregnancy, our "nine months" starts now!